New Book: Twilight of Abundance

David Archibald has written a new book. In short: Baby boomers enjoyed the most benign period in human history: fifty years of relative peace, cheap energy, plentiful grain supply, and a warming climate due to the highest solar activity for 8,000 years. The party is over—prepare for the twilight of abundance.

Archibald provides this overview.

The book’s preface provides a taste of the contents and gives some background to it.

Preface

This book had its origins back in 2005, when a fellow scientist requested that I attempt to replicate the work a German researcher had done on the Sun’s influence on climate. At the time, the solar physics community had a wide range of predictions of the level of future solar activity.

But strangely, the climate science community was not interested in what the Sun might do. I pressed on and made a few original contributions to science. The Sun cooperated, and solar activity has played out much as I predicted. It has become established—for those who are willing to look at the evidence—that climate will very closely follow our colder Sun. Climate is no longer a mystery to us. We can predict forward up to two solar cycles, that is about twenty-five years into the future. When models of solar activity are further refined, we may be able to predict climate forward beyond a hundred years.

I was a foot soldier in the solar science trench of the global warming battle. But that battle is only a part of the much larger culture wars. The culture wars are about the division of the spoils of civilization, about what Abraham Lincoln termed “that same old serpent that says you work and I eat, you toil and I will enjoy the fruits of it.” This struggle has been going on for at least as long as human beings have been speaking to each other, possibly for more than fifty thousand years. The forces of darkness have already lost the global warming battle—the actual science is “settled” in a way quite different from what they contend, and their pseudo-science and dissimulation have become impossible to hide from the public at large—but they are winning the culture wars, even to the extent of being able to steal from the future.

The scientific battle over global warming was won, and now the only thing that remained to be done was to shoot the wounded. That could give only so much pleasure, and the larger struggle called. So I turned my attention from climate to energy—always an interest of mine, as an Exxon-trained geologist. The Arab Spring brought attention to the fact that Egypt imports half its food, and that fact set me off down another line of inquiry, which in turn became a lecture entitled “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”. Those apocalyptic visions demanded a more lasting form—and thus this book.

While it has been an honor to serve on the side of the angels, that service has been tinged with a certain sadness—sadness that so many in the scientific community have been corrupted by a self-loathing for Western Civilization, what the French philosopher Julien Benda in 1927 termed“the treason of the intellectuals.”1 Ten years before Benda’s book, the German philosopher Oswald Spengler wrote The Decline of the West.2 Spengler dispensed with the traditional view of history as a linear progress from ancient to modern. The thesis of his book is that Western civilization is ending and we are witnessing the last season, the winter. Spengler’s contention is that this fate cannot be avoided, that we are facing complete civilizational exhaustion.

In this book I contend that the path to the broad sunlit uplands of permanent prosperity still lies before us—but to get there we have to choose that path. Nature is kind, and we could seamlessly switch from rocks that burn in chemical furnaces to a metal that burns in nuclear furnaces and maintain civilization at a level much like the one we experience now. But for that to happen, civilization has to slough off the treasonous elites, the corrupted and corrupting scribblers. Our civilization is not suffering from exhaustion so much as a sugar high. This book describes the twilight of abundance, the end of our self-indulgence as a civilization. What lies beyond that is of our own choosing.

It has been a wonderful journey of service and I have had many help me on the way. They include Bob Foster, Ray Evans, David Bellamy, Anthony Watts, Vaclav Klaus, Joseph Poprzeczny, Marek Chodakiewcz, Stefan Bjorklund, and the team at Regnery. Thanks to all.

I will give a bit further background to the book. Thanks to an introduction from James Delingpole, I had a meeting with the publisher, Regnery, in Washington in October 2012. At that meeting, the chief editor asked me,”Mr Archibald, what do hope to achieve with this book?”

I replied,”This may sound a bit whacko, but when I started out in climate science in 2005, I thought that if I get to the US Senate, that is as far as I could ever hope to get and I will be happy. I got to the US Senate in 2011 (I gave a lecture on climate in a US Senate hearing room thanks to Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute). With this book, I will write a strategic energy plan for the United States. That is step one. Step two is to implement the plan.”

If I can make it to the US Senate in six years from a cold start and 20,000 km away, anything is possible. So why not aim high?

This is the take-home message of the book: Humanity is in for a rough patch but we can come out the other side in decent shape if we have an eternity of low cost power from thorium molten salt reactors.

Once again, thanks very much to Anthony. I volunteered as his sidekick on his Australian tour a few years ago. I was invited back to Capitol Hill in September last year to give a lecture entitled Our Cooling Climate in a Congressional hearing room. The speaker’s notes are here.

One further thing. If you like the book and think that civilisation would be advanced by other people reading it, please put a review on the book’s Amazon page and that will contribute to how Amazon rates it.

137 thoughts on “New Book: Twilight of Abundance”

6 Mar: UK Daily Mail: Floods had a ‘silver lining’, says climate chief: UN sparks fury by making political point out of storms that battered Britain
‘They remind us solving climate change is not a partisan issue, she said
And Miss Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, added there was also an upside to the blast of Arctic air that blanketed America and Canada in snow, and the Australian bushfires, because they have forced climate change back on to the political agenda.
‘There’s no doubt that these events, that I call experiential evidence of climate change, does raise the issue to the highest political levels,’ she told the Guardian.
‘It’s unfortunate that we have to have these weather events, but there is a silver lining if you wish, that they remind us [that] solving climate change, addressing climate change in a timely way, is not a partisan issue.’…
Conservative MP Ian Liddell-Grainger, whose Bridgwater constituency in Somerset has borne the brunt of the flooding, said last night: ‘It is a complete insult to have this unelected, overpaid UN bureaucrat making glib comments at the expense of my constituents.
‘She hasn’t visited us here in Somerset, she knows nothing about what has happened here. She is taking advantage of this situation for political capital.
Apart from anything else, what she says is absolute rubbish. There is no evidence this is anything to do with climate change.’…
***Miss Figueres was speaking before an event in London, where she was due to meet major businesses including Unilever, Lafarge and Royal Dutch Shell.http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2574345/UNs-Christiana-Figueres-says-floods-silver-lining.html

“The Herald”, a major Australian newspaper, recently posted an update about the ongoing scandal of large scale foreign buyouts of Australian farmland, some of which are believed to be government backed.

The big question is – why? Why would the American and Chinese governments be so interested in large scale ownership of Australian farmland, land which the IPCC and Australian CSIRO predict will shortly become worthless desert?

The reason of course is the land will not shortly become worthless. The land may shortly become very valuable indeed. As the sun cools, if history is any guide, Northern Hemisphere agricultural production will plummet.

Given the risk, what could a nation whose grain belt is vulnerable to global cooling do to protect its future food supply?

The obviously solution is to buy up farmland in another country, a country which is warm enough, so that even if global temperatures fall significantly, the land they purchased would remain highly productive. A country which respects the rule of law, and would continue to respect the rule of law, even in the face of a global disaster.

Sure the sun goes up and down. But it is not so bad. We live on a wonderful planet and nature is wonderful. China and India will continue to build their coal fired stations (making CO2). Germany is back into coal fired stations (increasing CO2 production) – and so is Australia. Thankfully then CO2 will continue to increase and that might help it be a little warmer, but more importantly plants will have more food (CO2) to increase their growth. Plants will even become more drought resistant as CO2 increases. We are headed for a greener future.

I would like to read the book, it looks to be extremely interesting, My preference is to have an electronic version, not hard cover – any common electronic format such as epub or mobi (but not Acrobat pdf, thanks). The cost is not an issue – just my reading preference.

There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures….

Unless they were locked into a peasant, hunter-gatherer or similar society, it’s generally the case that over the last couple of thousand years each generation was better off than the previous one. I see no reason why that shouldn’t continue. Just compare the current rate of innovation with, say, 50 years ago.

It’s true that the self-loathing that the 68′ generation nurtures is a menace and a threat to progress. They also know they are right and will never change their sanctimonious ways, but Nature will relieve us of them within a decade or so.
Then the rest of us, who love the culture, liberty, capitalism and wealth of the West, can get on with the business of doing useful things.

Be a bit careful David.. If we turn solely to thorium, what will there be to replenish the absolutely necessary CO2. If we have the wherewithal, it must never be allowed to drop to the dangerously low levels of the past 10,000+ years.
In fact, to maintain food supplies in world with an increasing population, we should be aiming to push it up significantly higher. 700ppm would be a decent starting point.

50 years ago a little used to by you a lot, now a lot byes you very little. 50 years ago a little was made to last a lot longer , now a lot lasts for very little, We need to stop planned obsolescence and make our resources last a lot longer so were not paying a lot for less

“We can predict forward up to two solar cycles, that is about twenty-five years into the future.”
If my memory serves me, at the beginning of the current solar cycle the ‘predictions’ were that it would be as large as its predecessor and would peak sooner than it actually has.
Sure, they can make ‘predictions.’ So could Criswell. Just don’t expect any accuracy.

I would contend that our children already are not better off than we were, at least in the US. All of my children have multiple degrees, one an Architect, one a Doctor (doing AIDS research), and one a IT Security expert. Even so they are not experiencing the living standard that my wife and I experienced at a like age. My daughter (the Architect) lives in Fairfax County Va, she and her husband are both licensed architects with 10 years experience, yet they don’t make enough to afford a baby on their own. My wife and I are going to supplement their income in order for them to have a child and pay for child care, etc.

For my kids College was roughly 3x more expensive, relative to income than it was for us and they make far less (not actual income, but what that income will buy) than my wife and I did, In Fairfax my kids have a 50 year old, 1750 sq ft home that cost them the equivalent of almost 10 years combined annual income (relatively my first home cost roughly 4x my annual income) that they could not purchase until they were out of college for almost 8 years. My wife and I purchased our 1st home (a 1650 sqft, 3brdm, 2 car garage) before I left the military and we did that on my income alone as my wife was pregnant and was not working. When they were young I was the only one working outside the home for a period of ten years, yet we could afford a 2200 sqft home in a middle class neighborhood until my wife returned to work after the kids were all in school.

After I graduated from College I never again lived with nor received (or needed) financial help from my parents. All three of my kids have been ‘bounce backs’, some multiple times, and most of my friends and neighbors have had similar experiences.

I would contend that their generation will be the first to not be better off than the previous one, although not by much. I fear our grand children will be the 2nd generation and the difference will be greater.

I would put Thorium reactors well behind fast reactors in every conceivable way. Thorium reactors have no advantages over fast reactors in terms of cost, safety, or an unlimited energy supply.
They also lag far behind fast reactors in development.
Fast reactors can burn our nuclear wastes and provide 1000 years of energy for our country
just using what nuclear wastes we now have. And since fast reactors require such a small amount of uranium fuel, they can afford to very cost-effectively extract uranium from our oceans, even using today’s technology. And the oceans will NEVER run out of uranium. And fast reactors have
been around for decades, some even used to provide commercial power. Russia is selling and building them right now, as are several other countries.
As for conventional oil and gas, from what I’ve heard about new frackking possibilities
in Texas, we have many times greater resources there than in Bakkan and all the other frackking fields put together. Apparently an inconceivably enormous amount of oil and gas that can now be extracted using new deep drilling/frackking techniques.

” We can predict forward up to two solar cycles, that is about twenty-five years into the future. ”
IIRC, at the beginning of the current solar cycle the ‘predictions’ were that it would be as large as Cycle 23, and would peak much sooner than it actually did.

in the paper it quotes the EPA after making assumptions that the ph of the seas will decline , that a co2 level of 760 ppm will lower the pH of the surface ocean by 0.28
relative to the natural ‘‘mid 18th century’’ conditions. It then quotes the EPA regulations as a back up.

EPA_
“Quality Criteria for Water state: ‘‘For open ocean waters
where the depth is substantially greater than the euphotic
zone, the pH should not be changed more than 0.2 units
outside the range of naturally occurring variation . . .’’

The paper misquotes the EPA and misses out crucial info,

SO this is what the EPA regulations actually said ,

US EPA 1976 Recommended Marine pH Criteria
“pH range of 6.5 to 8.5 for marine aquatic life (but not varying more than 0.2 units outside of the
normally occurring range).” These marine criteria apply to open-ocean waters within 3 miles of a State
or Territory‟s shoreline where the depth is substantially greater than the euphotic zone (depth of water
that receives sufficient light for photosynthesis and growth of green plants).

Be a bit careful David.. If we turn solely to thorium, what will there be to replenish the absolutely necessary CO2. If we have the wherewithal, it must never be allowed to drop to the dangerously low levels of the past 10,000+ years.
In fact, to maintain food supplies in world with an increasing population, we should be aiming to push it up significantly higher. 700ppm would be a decent starting point.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Bears repeating.
However using Thorium as baseload in first world countries leaves coal for the other countries to use to bring their level of civilization up to a reasonable level.

…
“… Since 1972 the grain crisis has intensified…. Since 1969 the storage of grain has decreased from 600 million metric tons to less than 100 million metric tons – a 30 day supply… many governments have gone to great lengths to hide their agricultural predicaments from other countries as well as from their own people…

pg 9
The archaeologists and climatotologists document a rather grim history… There is considerable evidence that these empires may not have been undone by barbarian invaders but by climatic change…. has tied several of these declines to specific global cool periods, major and minor, that affected global atmospheric circulation and brought wave upon wave of drought to formerly rich agricultural lands.

Refugees from these collapsing civilizations were often able to migrate to better lands… This would be of little comfort however,… The world is too densely populated and politically divided to accommodate mass migration….The Wisconsin analysis questions whether a return to these climate conditions could support a population that has grown from 1.1 billion in 1850 to 3.75 billion in 1970. The Wisconsin group predicted that the climate could not support the world’s population since technology offers no immediate solution. Further world grain reserves currently amount to less than one month; thus any delay in supplies implies mass starvation. They also contended that new crop strains could not be developed over night… Moreover they observed that agriculture would become even more energy dependent in a world of declining resources.

Holdren and the other Malthusians from Stanford University were not alone. The US government was behind them since BEFORE their book Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions (1973) was published recommending the USA be de-developed. The book just echoed the real thoughts of the US government of that time. Given Holdren is Obama’s Science Czar and the Malthusian drivel is still coming out of Stanford as a recent WUWT article shows, I do not see that the actual mindset in DC has changed.

OH, and you can add US “Universities in Africa ‘land grab’ (Guardian) the seed banks, DNA testing (and banking) of all babies born in the USA and UK, DNA banks for 4-H livestock. Not to mention the USDA providing the funds for development of Epicyte’s spermicidal corn to the pile of evidence that all is not as it seems with regard to America’s Ruling Class and their thoughts about us peasants.

I just received a book titled “Climate of Hunger – Mankind and the world’s changing weather” by Reid Bryson and Thomas Murray, published in 1977, at the end of the last ~30-year period of global cooling.

It is an interesting read, and describes natural climate changes over the past several thousand years and the impacts on civilizations.

The book particularly focuses on the last ~1000 years of human history, and the increase in human suffering that coincided with periods of natural global cooling.

The book is of particular interest because it was written in an era before the current “blame everything on CO2” mantra became the accepted wisdom of imbeciles worldwide.

From wiki:

Reid Bryson (7 June 1920 – 11 June 2008) was an American atmospheric scientist, geologist and meteorologist. He was a professor emeritus of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He completed a B.A. in geology at Denison University in 1941 and a Ph.D. in meteorology from University of Chicago in 1948. In 1946 he joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and in 1948 he became the founder and first chairman of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Meteorology and Center for Climatic Research. He was the first director of the Institute for Environmental Studies (now the Nelson Institute) in 1970.

In 1944, during World War II, he was one of the few meteorologists who accurately identified Typhoon Cobra, which savaged Halsey’s Third Fleet.

Bryson was made a Global Laureate by the United Nations Global Environment Program in 1990.

…

In later years, when it was clear that the climate was indeed warming, Bryson argued that while climate change and a global increase in temperature are real, he did not believe that they are caused by human activity. Rather, he argued that they are part of natural global climate cycles, particularly the end of the Little Ice Age: “All this argument is the temperature going up or not, it’s absurd,” Bryson continues. “Of course it’s going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we’re coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we’re putting more carbon dioxide into the air.”

Also see Dr. Segalstad’s web page his experiment (video)
and DOWNLOAD my ESEF Vol. 1 Chapter (PDF approx. 200 kbytes) from that web page.
That also has the chemistry starting on page 34. Chemical laws for distribution of CO2 in nature

I am awaiting Leif Svalgaard’s opinion on this book.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You do not have to wait. I can tell you that Svalgaard’s opinion of David is very low and Svalgaard’s opinion is the sun is constant and has very little to do with the earth’s climate. He does credit the Milancovitch cycles for ice ages because they are based on the earth’s orbital changes and not changes in the sun.

Gamecock says: @ March 6, 2014 at 5:03 am
All that is necessary for prosperity is free trade and property rights. The government of the United States has been attacking these for 50 years.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
More like a hundred.
1. The Federal Reserve Act of 1913
2. The Sixteenth Amendment adopted on February 3, 1913, allows the Congress to levy an income tax without apportionment.
3. The Seventh Amendment adopted on May 31, 1913, changed senators from election by state legislatures to election by popular vote.

These three moves shifted the power base from the states where the people had more control to the federal government. It has been down hill ever since especially after FDR took our gold and gave the Federal Government unlimited power thanks to a re-interpretation of the Commerce Clause allowing the Federal government to regulate food for home use (Wickard v. Filburn) and just about everything else.

As the sun cools, if history is any guide, Northern Hemisphere agricultural production will plummet.

It’s understandable that the Northern parts of the Northern Hemisphere will see a decline in production. Why wouldn’t that same problem hold for the Southern parts of the Southern Hemisphere? It seems that it didn’t; I just don’t understand why.

Gail Combs says:
March 6, 2014 at 4:35 amYou do not have to wait. I can tell you that Svalgaard’s opinion of David is very low and Svalgaard’s opinion is the sun is constant and has very little to do with the earth’s climate.
Almost correct, except the ‘constant’ bit. The Sun undergoes cycles of activity, returning to an almost constant ‘base level’ between each cycle which in turn varies in size.

On the book: I have not read it, but its tone [judging from this post] seems much too alarmist for my taste and its claim that we can predict solar activity two cycles in advance is unfounded. IMHO, we can predict with confidence less than one cycle ahead. We can guess solar activity in the future, but that is not an actionable prediction.

We have much less ability to predict solar cycles accurately than we do the weather or climate.
The solar cycle we are in was not predicted and we have no idea how this one will end or how they next will begin.
Additionally, I find predictions of the various apocalypses to be accurate only in the negative: What the apocalyptic predictions claim the future holds are almost never correct.
Apocalyptic claptrap is one of the reasons I started questioning the AGW community.
But humans seem to have a need for apocalyptic stories at a very deep level and have apparently done so for millenia.

Gail Combs says:
March 6, 2014 at 4:35 am
the sun is constant and has very little to do with the earth’s climate.
================
It is strange however that the Milancovitch cycles provide no explanation for the Little Ice Age, and the Sun has shown itself to be quite variable when it comes to its magnetic cycle.

If the sun is constant, why does the solar (magnetic) cycle length vary? Why does the sunspot count vary? Why does the solar wind strength vary? This does not provide assurance that the Sun is constant, only that certain measures of the Sun are relatively constant.

Climate Science assumes that Climate is drive by watts/meter squared. Since this varies only slightly based on a very limited period of space-based observation of the Sun, it is assumed that the Sun has limited effect on climate.

However, assumptions in science have a very long track record of being proven wrong in the long run. Nature almost always surprises us in ways we never imagined.

For example, there are many observations that suggest there is a 1000-2000 year cycle in climate. Even under the assumption that climate is driven by w/m2, would we be able with modern technology to detect such a long cycle variation in the Sun against the background noise of the solar cycle? I expect not. The sampling period is much too short.

It just isn’t choosing a path. The path to prosperity is a well worn one in which we allow it to be followed. I see many woeing and despairing things like peak oil with what are we going to do. I always answer: “Do nothing, it will be done for you.” Their are too many people employed at answering “what are we going to do” when there is no problem. We have to find a way to overcome humanity-hating ideologues from having so much influence – they are recruiting at 5 years old, they have no qualms about employing lies and deceits and history tells us that their limits can’t be plumbed (don’t take lightly talk of trials for skeptics, hit squads and the like).

I hope the book has a paragraph or two on the importance of being proactive in educating our children, speaking out, etc. (the anti-civilization zealots rely on the silence of the majority).

Is the plan coming apart?http://www.usawatchdog.com
& scroll down to the article:
US Currency Weak and About to Crash.
02/12/2014 371 comments. ( which I haven’t had time to read.
Karen is ex Chief Legal Counsel for the World Bank.

If the Sun was a long period pulsating star, with a period of say 1-2 hundred solar cycles, showing similar variability as the solar cycle, and say 1-2% change in intensity over the cycle, could we detect this?

Gail Combs says:
March 6, 2014 at 5:26 am
Gamecock says: @ March 6, 2014 at 5:03 am
All that is necessary for prosperity is free trade and property rights. The government of the United States has been attacking these for 50 years.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
More like a hundred.
1. The Federal Reserve Act of 1913
2. The Sixteenth Amendment adopted on February 3, 1913, allows the Congress to levy an income tax without apportionment.
3. The Seventh Amendment adopted on May 31, 1913, changed senators from election by state legislatures to election by popular vote.

These three moves shifted the power base from the states where the people had more control to the federal government. It has been down hill ever since especially after FDR took our gold and gave the Federal Government unlimited power thanks to a re-interpretation of the Commerce Clause allowing the Federal government to regulate food for home use (Wickard v. Filburn) and just about everything else.

Yep. Note typo: no. 3 was the Seventeenth.

You all should read Mark Levin’s The Liberty Amendments for a plan of action to rescue the States and the Citizens from the overreaching, overburdening Federal Leviathan.

Gamecock says: March 6, 2014 at 6:23 am “There was no thorium in the reactor. Really. Thorium is the 100 mpg carburetor of the 21st century.”

LOL, well said. And cold fusion is the dehydrated fuel pill.

And why have all the molten solids cooled reactors been decommissioned? Were thorium to fulfil its extreme expectations, it would not overcome the difficulties of cooling a reactor with a molten solid.

Quote by Paul Ehrlich, professor, Stanford University: “Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.”
Quote by Club of Rome: “The Earth has cancer and the cancer is Man.”
Many more here: http://www.c3headlines.com/global-warming-quotes-climate-change-quotes.html
That is what we are up against. Humanity haters, or more specifically, haters of western civilization, and all of modern society. Though, of course, it doesn’t stop them from taking every advantage from what they purport to despise.

Is David Archibald the anti- Ehrlich? If past is prologue, how widely will any futurist’s dart miss the mark? Whatever lies in store for our planet, I haven’t seen any evidence which holds under scrutiny, which indicates the Sun has much to do with climate variance, unless (still highly speculative) interactions with GCRs is a driving force.

If the sun is constant, why does the solar (magnetic) cycle length vary? Why does the sunspot count vary? Why does the solar wind strength vary? This does not provide assurance that the Sun is constant, only that certain measures of the Sun are relatively constant.

Climate Science assumes that Climate is drive by watts/meter squared. Since this varies only slightly based on a very limited period of space-based observation of the Sun, it is assumed that the Sun has limited effect on climate.

Col Mosby says:
March 6, 2014 at 2:22 am
Fast reactors can burn our nuclear wastes and provide 1000 years of energy for our country
just using what nuclear wastes we now have.
===========
With the election of President Bill Clinton in 1992, and the appointment of Hazel O’Leary as the Secretary of Energy, there was pressure from the top to cancel the IFR.[28] Sen. John Kerry (D, MA) and O’Leary led the opposition to the reactor…

In 2001, as part of the Generation IV roadmap, the DOE tasked a 242 person team of scientists from DOE, UC Berkeley, MIT, Stanford, ANL, LLNL, Toshiba, Westinghouse, Duke, EPRI, and other institutions to evaluate 19 of the best reactor designs on 27 different criteria. The IFR ranked #1 in their study which was released April 9, 2002.[34]

I won’t live long enough to see any of David A’s visions. Still, I don’t see an explanation of the workings between Sun and Climate. Thus, I don’t anticipate much traction for “ the path to the broad sunlit uplands of permanent prosperity.”

It’s actually worse than this assessment when you read up on the look-back and look-forward issues raised by the economist Robert Gordon. You will find that wealth creation, average growth rates, and the tax base were unsustainably large during the baby boomer generation. This was further extended by female entry into the workplace. The underlying growth potential of these demographic and participation effects peaked in about 2000 and only a finance bubble kept it propped up for another business cycle. Looking ahead, we will have the combined negative effects on society of low economic growth potential, cold climate, Detroit-style financing gimmicks, and public investments directed in precisely the opposite direction, as if nothing ever changed. It is the last item that is most distressing, a concerted policy effort to be wrong in the face of diminished capacity to get it right and in the presence of warning signs in both science and public finance. We are entering the age of extreme excuses in both science, policy, and social condition. The politics of a zero-sum game are most likely in this scenario.

ferdberple says:
March 6, 2014 at 5:58 amIf the sun is constant, why does the solar (magnetic) cycle length vary?
The Sun is not constant. Why do people keep repeating this nonsense? The Sun has cyclic solar activity on top of a constant basal level.

Another prediction of low cycle 24:
Schatten, K. H.: Fair space weather for solar cycle 24, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L21106,
doi:10.1029/2005GL024363, 2005.http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2005GL024363/abstract :
“[1] We discuss the polar field precursor method of solar activity forecasting, first developed 3 decades ago. Using this method the peak amplitude of the next solar cycle (24) is estimated at 124 ± 30 in terms of smoothed F10.7 Radio Flux and 80 ± 30 in terms of smoothed international or Zurich Sunspot number (Ri or Rz). This may be regarded as a “fair space weather” long term forecast. To support this prediction, direct measurements are obtained from the Wilcox and Mount Wilson Solar Observatories. Additionally, coronal features do not show the characteristics of well-formed polar coronal holes associated with typical solar minima, but rather resemble stunted polar field levels. The question is raised: why have the Sun’s polar fields not strengthened comparably in the 2000–2005 time period, as in the previous few decades? The dramatic field changes seen suggest the importance of field motions associated with photospheric (e.g. meridional) flows for the Sun’s dynamo. Flows may also play a role in active region development, e.g., it is possible that field magnification occurs through surface processes, namely active region field strengthening (sunspot growth) through the influx of like photospheric magnetic regions, and even the influx of ERs (ephemeral regions), wherein the same sign (like) flux could be differentially drawn into spots of that sign, leading to field growth.”

The obviously [sic] solution is to buy up farmland in another country, a country which is warm enough, so that even if global temperatures fall significantly, the land they purchased would remain highly productive. A country which respects the rule of law, and would continue to respect the rule of law, even in the face of a global disaster.

Gail Combs says: @ March 6, 2014 at 4:35 am
the sun is constant and has very little to do with the earth’s climate….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
No that is what I said was Dr Svalgaard’s position was (minor variations of ~ 0.1% if I remember correctly)

That is not my position however. (Swivels. ducks and runs before Dr Svalgaard descends breathing fire.)

There is also 1915 when J.P. Morgan bought out the important newspapers so the US public could be fed propaganda instead of news or 1894 where “Progressive Brainwashing Education” was born.

… In 1894, Dewey was appointed head of the department of philosophy, psychology and education at the University of Chicago which had been established two years earlier by a gift from John D. Rockefeller. In 1896, Dewey created his famous experimental Laboratory School where he could test the effects of the new psychology on real live children.

Dewey’s philosophy had evolved from Hegelian idealism to socialist materialism, and the purpose of the school was to show how education could be changed to produce little socialists and collectivists instead of little capitalists and individualists. It was expected that these little socialists, when they became voting adults, would dutifully change the American economic system into a socialist one….

The travesty is how these same academics joined with a bank known as the government to hike tuition and board for college up so high that a permanent recession is triggered, stopping the momentum of whole generations as they enter their peak years. Thanks to fracking, at least the US and a few other countries can pull free molecular money right out of the ground, as inflation renders fixed value student loans into relatively smaller ones.

lsvalgaard says:
March 6, 2014 at 7:31 am
‘Positions’ are not facts.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
And all the facts are not in so we are left with the best guess based on the available facts/evidence hence ‘Position’ which is an interpretation of the facts/evidence available at this time.

I am a chemist and I have followed biology just for the fun of it and the “Facts” and information changes so fast (especially in Bio) it makes your head spin.

The Arab Spring brought attention to the fact that Egypt imports half its food,
_______________________________

This, from the nation that once fed ancient Rome with its huge grain surplus.

And the reason for this dire food shortage is obvious when you fly over the Delta – rampant overpopulation. You do not see open fields in the Delta any more, you just see village after village almost touching each other, with barely a field in between.

The perils and evils of the anti-Malthusian brigade are clear to see in Egypt – a nation that is living on the edge, with precious little exports to pay for all that food it needs, because it has built over its prime farm land and can no longer feed itself. The anti-Malthusians are a grave threat not only to Egypt, but the world.

Incidentally, Egypt still flares off all its gas too. So when you fly over Egypt at night, all you can see is hundreds of gas flares, burning away 24/7. I hope they are not paying for gas imports at the same time…..

“In this book I contend that the path to the broad sunlit uplands of permanent prosperity still lies before us—but to get there we have to choose that path. Nature is kind, and we could seamlessly switch from rocks that burn in chemical furnaces to a metal that burns in nuclear furnaces and maintain civilization at a level much like the one we experience now. But for that to happen, civilization has to slough off the treasonous elites, the corrupted and corrupting scribblers. Our civilization is not suffering from exhaustion so much as a sugar high. This book describes the twilight of abundance, the end of our self-indulgence as a civilization. What lies beyond that is of our own choosing.”

I think we are at dawn of abundance.
I think nuclear energy is fine, just as I think hydro power is fine. But main thing is we are in the information age and the space age. So we are having changes in education due to information
age and we are getting lower costs to get into space. This should not confused with idea that our governments are lowering the cost of getting into space, or the government is in driver seat in regards to changing education as related to information age. No, it has little to do with how responsive the government has been- but rather government is mostly a force which is inhibiting. Though government could given some credit for not inhibiting it as much a governments could be capable of inhibiting it. Or you say government has been balanced rather some fantasy of government doing anything heroic.
Imagining we going to be transformed by nuclear energy, requires a heroic government, and that’s a poor bet at best. It’s like thinking government could improve education. Or that government could lower the cost of getting into space. Or government is currently improving American healthcare.
So, a better future would be a government which was less totalitarian- a government less like Russia or China [or current apparent trajectory of America]. Or any government in which citizens are dependent on political leadership making good decisions- because they never or rarely actually do this. Their decisions generally end up being related to increasing taxes and starting wars. Rather what they should do, which is lowering taxes and causing less wars in the future.
Or in other words politicians always want more power- that is defining characteristic of politicians.
They love sugar, and we permit them gain a lifetime supply of sugar which they gouge upon until they drop dead.

Say “globally” increase access to space. And/or access to education. And/or access to making electrical power from nuclear power plants
Now if one could somehow characterize governmental control- how much governmental control is need for access to Space, Education, and nuclear power plants?

What are consequence of having cost of getting into space becoming lower.
If low enough it means people could live in space- in orbit, or other planets. And millions of people want to do this. And if thousands of people actually did this, it would radically change our future. Just as thousands of people starting to have electrical power to light their homes and thousand people flying on airplanes radically changed the world. There lot a ramification or opportunities associated the lower the cost of getting into space.
Galactically, Earth begins to not be some “third world planet”, so universally we are going somewhere. Rather than remaining cavemen. So if concerned about universe status, that could one consideration.
But in terms of globally energy. The only reason we don’t put solar panels in space is because it
cost too much to put them in space. So if costs to get into space was low enough, we would harvest solar energy from space.
And technically it possible to get it low enough cost to do this. So it’s unlike fusion energy.
We can get into space, we can not make a fusion reactor which works. The problem of space
is not that it can’t be done, the problem is it is currently too expensive. And more matter how much money you spend, you can’t make a workable fusion reactor yet. Once that is possible
one consider the cost of making fusion reactor for making electrical power.
So cost of getting into space has lower, and probably will continue to lower in the future, but at current rate it lowering in cost doesn’t indicate we will close to harvesting electrical energy from Space. So, we launching things into space for 50 years, and if extend into future another 50 year, the rate of reduction in cost that has occurred if extended into future does not make it low enough. So don’t want anyone assuming I mean it is lowering this fast, but there “things” would could happen we could affect it so it lowers faster.
So access to space at moment is like 1960 computers, and without knowing variable involving the market, hard to predict computer would become the cost they were in 2010.
And rocket technology has not changed over last 50 years by much and I don’t expect it
to change much over next 50 fifty year. But would changed rapidly changed computer was more people wanted them- they reached a cost and capability that allowed more people to get them.
So cost of cost rocket could right now, lower by a half- and that has to do how many are made, rather than how they are made. And lower by half is not enough, but it can trigger other factors
which lower the cost further.

In terms fission reactors- or current nuclear reactors used for electrical power, Bill Gates is looking mass producing portable reactor. And that could work in terms of getting cheap source
of nuclear energy. So that could good, but getting cheap access to space, would be more significant in terms of the future.

Speaking of food, where I live (Corn and Soybean belt) there is still a foot of snow and ice on the ground. The high temps this week end are for above freezing temperatures (37-40F). If we do not see consistently above freezing temps both day and night there could still be snow on the ground come April. Planting season is approaching and what will happen if the ground is still frozen 2-3 feet deep. In many locations, civil authorities still advise rural people to keep their faucets on drip becuase of the deepening freeze levels.

How long will this cold pattern persist before real problems like crop yields and choice of crops planted become a big deal?

David Archibald has written enough about peak oil to convince me he really believes in it. But my father told me 50 years ago there was more oil under SW Wyoming in the shale than there was in all the Middle East. He also assumed we would figure out how to get it out, someday, when prices and technology converged. My father didn’t believe in peak oil. “Peak Oil” is a matter of belief and not observable fact; The believers just keep getting disappointed. Archibald’s prognostications will be flawed (false prophecy) if he doesn’t construct a null hypothesis that peak oil could be true or false. Based on observations over the last fifty years “peak oil” is not a certainty. That is charitably put too.

A relatively small part of the population is farm kids.
My wife was one. She lived on a real working farm.
My background has a hobby farm with circus animals, and
a hobby ranch, but neither were lawns that need to be mown.

My wife has horticultural degrees, and enjoys growing tropicals.
We live in a sub-tropical zone, thus this is a challenge.

200 miles to our north, it snows and freezes every winter, and our plants could not grow.
200 miles south, they don’t need to perform the exercise every winter of wrapping the trunks and misting the leaves on cold nights, while moving a dozen of the more tender specimens into the shop. Seasonal “climate change” is a reality…but our stuff is a hobby,

As a private pilot, I’ve flown across the vast plains of the US and southern Canada.
@130 mph, taking more than a days to cross something qualifies “vast”.

A couple of degrees of warming, and the 200X1500 miles north of the grain belt would become productive (as would vast swaths of Russia).

A couple of degrees cooler, and a 200X1500 swath here, and more in Russia, might have to return to marginal pasture.

We are watching the Russians on the world stage now.

With warming, they will have more resources. How will they react?
With cooling, they will have hunger. How will they react?

Fire or ice…both will have consequences.

Where should we be putting our “climate change” concerns? Hint: “the EPA” is the wrong answer.

Miking sure we have manageable food and shelter whether the change is colder, warmer, or more variability might not be a bad strategy.

Gail Combs says:
March 6, 2014 at 7:49 am“‘Positions’ are not facts.”
And all the facts are not in so we are left with the best guess based on the available facts/evidence hence ‘Position’ which is an interpretation of the facts/evidence available at this time.

All the facts are never in, and as you say ‘position’ is your opinion based on what you know and what you accept as ‘evidence’. I would consider the scientific basis for the current state of affairs as more than a mere ‘guess’, but will accept that your opinion is just your guess.

“The forces of darkness have already lost the global warming battle—the actual science is “settled” in a way quite different from what they contend, and their pseudo-science and dissimulation have become impossible to hide from the public at large—but they are winning the culture wars, even to the extent of being able to steal from the future.”

The ruse of claiming to use other people’s money to give out favors to one’s constituency seems to work well even with some of the more conservative political bases. After all, the argument goes, if we don’t get the money some other state, county or city will get that government grant. And politically, it is very difficult to run against Santa Claus. What they forget is that it is actually their money with which they are being bribed.

And yet, no prescription ever issued/mentioned to correct this. Not even a peep about invoking an Article V solution as outlined in the Constitution (vis-a-vis a convention of the states). Do you/have you ever read that document (the Constitution)?

This sounds a bit like Paul Ehrlich/John Holdren lite. The Club of Rome report from the early 1970s, lite.

Yes, baby boomers in the US were at a great time in history, for them. The US was pretty much the only industrial power left standing, so the US had little competition for quite a while.

But are things really so dire? Haven’t we just been through a decade and a half when about half a billion people left $1 per day poverty to get into working or middle classes? It didn’t happen in the US — it happened in China, India, in other parts of the developing world — because we were already near the top of the heap and are facing competition like we’ve never faced before, but if we look at the world as a whole, things are getting much brighter.

MrLynn says March 6, 2014 at 6:20 am
…
You all should read Mark Levin’s The Liberty Amendments for a plan of action to rescue the States and the Citizens from the overreaching, overburdening Federal Leviathan.

lsvalgaard says:
“All the facts are never in, and as you say ‘position’ is your opinion based on what you know and what you accept as ‘evidence’. I would consider the scientific basis for the current state of affairs as more than a mere ‘guess’, but will accept that your opinion is just your guess.”

Opinion vs guess seems to be very much in the eye of the beholder in many areas of science. For example, MOND is gaining followers as the great search for Dark Matter continues to come up empty handed. A good test of some of the unproven hypotheses in many areas is to determine how “convenient” the opinion is for the scientist to be within the consensus ring. It is always inconvenient to be burned at the stake, literally, or figuratively for that matter.

Speaking of food, where I live (Corn and Soybean belt) there is still a foot of snow and ice on the ground. The high temps this week end are for above freezing temperatures (37-40F). If we do not see consistently above freezing temps both day and night there could still be snow on the ground come April…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I am in mid North Carolina (Piedmont) I just checked and the ground temperature here and it is 38 °F (six inch metal thermometer) Our planting season is ~ April 15 for beans (Garden types) and April 20th for tomatoes. Spinach is Feb. 15-Mar. 15.

Do slight changes in solar output change the climate here on earth? I don’t think anyone knows yet but we are getting a front row seat to the experiment. Either we are about to get cold as hell or we are not, but at least we get an opportunity to study this interesting time with modern equipment. Hopefully we can get an honest evaluation of the data and not adjusted nonsense like the so called climate scientists put out.

Then what is the answer?- Not to be deluded by dreams.
To know that great civilizations have broken down into violence,
and their tyrants come, many times before.
When open violence appears, to avoid it with honor or choose
the least ugly faction; these evils are essential.
To keep one’s own integrity, be merciful and uncorrupted
and not wish for evil; and not be duped
By dreams of universal justice or happiness. These dreams will
not be fulfilled.
To know this, and know that however ugly the parts appear
the whole remains beautiful. A severed hand
Is an ugly thing and man dissevered from the earth and stars
and his history… for contemplation or in fact…
Often appears atrociously ugly. Integrity is wholeness,
the greatest beauty is
Organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty
of the universe. Love that, not man
Apart from that, or else you will share man’s pitiful confusions,
or drown in despair when his days darken.

I think i will get the book and read it. But! I think he may be leaving out the energy side of the equation. Prosperity and life expectancy are functions of cheep energy. Laurenceville Plasma physics may be months away from pre-commercial fusion power with their dense plasma focus machine. The U. S. Navy seems to be getting results with their pollywell fusion device. Finally, Liquid Thorium Salt fission reactors that are almost 100% efficient and walk away safe are in development. In addition, resources throughout the solar system will be available with fission fragment rockets with specific impulse values of over 1,000,000 seconds.

People do not always progress. The Middle Ages happened. Egypt can’t feed itself any longer. Detroit is half of what it once was. Even California is becoming a mess economically and fiscally. And South America’s countries, one by one, are entering a period of despotism, while the Middle East threatens to revert to Islamic fundamentalism, a pox on progress if ever there was one.

Yet, given proper circumstances, progress seems inevitable due primarily to technological change. Fracking, genetically-modified seeds, ubiquitous information availability, near-instant communication across the globe; all of these promise massive progress in the future. Education alone is likely to undergo massive change in the near future, for the good, as 5 year olds eventually refuse to put down their iPads to listen to a droning teacher when they have been learning at light speed for the previous five years. In time, the current high school curriculum will be completely absorbed by 14-year-olds whose learning pace was never slowed by the present assembly line method of instruction.

The eventual outcome: uncertain, but totally dependent upon the governments we end up with. Not the governments we choose, but the ones we actually get. Archibald’s book sounds to me like an effort to influence the result, and I agree with the commenter who suggested that the effort has to include addressing what our children are taught. When is the last time, for example, anyone has seen a business organization (other than a mom-and-pop one being picked on by big business) portrayed in a favorable light in a movie or television series? You might recall one, but that one (unlikely) instance has been offset by hundreds of unfavorable references during the same time frame.

Think of that. A business model that simply allows people to organize their economic affairs in a way that avoids personal liability while taking huge risks to offer products people want is not lionized, but constantly and overtly criticized in nearly every movie and television program produced today. We have a long way to go if we are to avoid the fate of today’s Venezuela eventually.

Mother Nature emits like 30X more CO2 into the atmosphere via the rotting and/or decaying of biomass …. than us humans do via all of our activities.

As a matter of fact, if you cut human emissions of CO2 by 50% this very day …… you could not detect that “decrease” via the Mona Loa “Keeling Curve” Graph of atmospheric CO2 ppm quantities.

In actuality, humans are little more than a “bit” player in the Carbon Cycle, …. to wit:

CO2 emitters —– est. global (wet) biomass in millions of tons

humans ————— 350
cattle —————– 520
ants —————- 900 – 9,000

Carbon re-cyclers —- est. global (dry) biomass in millions of tons

“Humans comprise about 100 million tonnes of the Earth’s dry biomass, domesticated animals about 700 million tonnes, and crops about 2 billion tonnes. The most successful animal species, in terms of biomass, may well be Antarctic krill, Euphausia superba, with a fresh biomass approaching 500 million tones, although domestic cattle may also reach these immense figures. However, as a group, the small aquatic crustaceans called copepods may form the largest animal biomass on earth.

A 2009 paper in Science estimates, for the first time, the total world fish biomass as somewhere between 0.8 and 2.0 billion tonnes. It has been estimated that about 1% of the global biomass is due to phytoplankton, and a staggering 25% is due to fungi.” Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass_(ecology)

Allan M.R. MacRae says:
March 6, 2014 at 9:06 amAs you can see, there are 45 of them, more than enough to fill a roulette wheel, and they are “all over the map”.
Paraphrasing the Pig: “some predictions are more equal than others”

1. Those who have been dumbed down, and will follow anything the “experts” tell them.
2. Those who have been dumbed down, but still have a rugged individualism and desire to be free and self-sufficient.
3. Those who are intelligent, but only crave wealth and power.
4. Those who are intelligent, and crave reason, critical thinking, freedom and liberty.

In my opinion, when this country was founded, we also had all of the above, but #4 slightly outnumbered #3, and #2 vastly outnumbered #1, so the #4 type people could lead the #2 type people and win the day.

Now, I fear that the balance of power has shifted, and the #3 type people and #1 type people are dominant. There is still hope, but we are going to have to rely on the critical thinkers and rugged individualists to somehow get us out of the current mess, in spite of the 1%’ers and the blind followers.

“The new Age will begin when a net covers the world”
Welcome to the new age. All over the world the World Wide Web is breaking the Elites control on information. The Warmistras Religion of doom has lost its’ hold on the discussion of climate changes. Time to break their hold on the discussion on energy production. We don’t need them. pg

Samuel C Cogar says: @ March 6, 2014 at 9:35 am
….Don’t ya’ll be fretting about something that isn’t worth fretting about.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Sorry but that is a different animal entirely. You are talking the carbon cycle that happens in season or years.

The CO2 (carbon) sequestered in coal and limestone has been taken out of that (short) cycle permanently until it is released again by recycling via subduction and volcanoes and that will take eons. Burning coal/oil short cuts the long cycle.

This sequestering of CO2 as coal or limestone is why C4 photosynthesis evolved. C3 is the better path but only with abundant CO2 (and rain) All but 1% of plant species are C3 but C4 is 30% of the biomass.

If/when the earth returns to glaciation the CO2 levels will drop again. Without releasing the CO2 from coal/limestone into the atmosphere you are going to starve all the C3 plants many of which are food plants for humans and animals. Adaptation to eating C4 plants is rather recent. C4 plants are fibrous and have more silica content in their tissues when compared to C3 plants and tolerate grazing better while C3 grasses are more cold tolerant.

….the cool-season, or so-called C3, grasses developed more than 65 million years ago, soon before the end of the age of dinosaurs, the warm-season, or C4, grasses found in savannahs evolved 25 million to 35 million years ago and emerged in Africa just 10 million years or so ago….

In the kind of photosynthesis that C3 plants rely on, the carbon-12 isotope, which has the lightest molecular weight of stable carbon isotopes, is preferred. In C4 photosynthesis, both carbon-12 and the heavier carbon-13 isotope are used. Depending on the food eaten, an animal would integrate certain ratios of carbon isotopes into its body tissues. By measuring ratios of these isotopes in the enamel of fossil teeth and determining the ages of the sediments they were found in, the scientists could figure out if herbivores ate C3 plants, C4 plants or a mix, and when they “hit the hay,” so to speak, constructing a 7-million-year record of dietary change from 10 million to 3 million years ago.

“Grass is now the main food for many herbivores in East Africa,” Uno said.

The first animals to switch to warm-season grasses were zebras’ ancestors, starting 9.9 million years ago. “Horses were ready for the ‘new restaurant’ and went exclusively to this new food resource,” Cerling said.

Next, some but not all rhinos made the switch beginning 9.6 million years ago. This was also true of the bovids, which today include gazelles, wildebeest and Cape buffalo. Grass-grazing spread 7.4 million years ago to the ancestors of elephants, and once it did, they remained grazers until very recently, probably in the last million years or so. Today, African and Asian elephants eat mostly C3 trees and shrubs.

Allan M.R. MacRae says:
March 6, 2014 at 10:36 amYou did well Leif.
NASA not so much – as recently as 2006? NASA said SC 24 would be robust.
A mark of good and honest scientists is that they admit and correct their mistakes. Hathaway [not NASA’s official prediction – they don’t do any] has seen the light years ago and should not be faulted for that old prediction. It is a mark of science to be falsifiable and Hathaway certainly deserves that mark.

In olden days (as seen by proxy, take that for what it’s worth), times of lower solar activity often did not produce times of cooling (the little ice age was a looooong time of lower solar activity comparatively, note that).

In the 70’s, cooling appeared to coincide with the PDO in cold phase, papers screamed of the coming ice age.

The PDO is in cold phase (the AMO is also going into cold phase).

There is low solar activity (for now…).

So, if it gets cooler, is it the sun, or the PDO/AMO?

If it was low solar activity for the LIA, note that it took about 100 years (off and on) of very low solar activity (of a sort) before the cold hit. Is the current solar activity that low? How long has the current low solar activity lasted? So how does today’s lower solar activity compare to the LIA?

My conclusion:
Just as in the 70’s, it will get cooler, just as it has before when the PDO/AMO did what they are doing now for that amount of time.
The sun will be blamed.
Bad sun, bad!

Thank you for writing this book which I will read once it is available for Kindle. In your preface above I note you reference to Julien Benda’s work, ‘The Treason of the Intellectuals’, which speaks today to the politicization of Science, a particular treason of reason.

I reject any malthusian predictions, especially about our energy resources.

We will find new ways to cope with problems

Just watch “When idea’s have sex” and realize that thanks to the web idea’s will have sex much frequently and also realize that the concept of earning money is undermined by the web as well
The elites e have today are not the elites we have tomorrow.

@Legatus
If it was low solar activity for the LIA, note that it took about 100 years (off and on) of very low solar activity (of a sort) before the cold hit. Is the current solar activity that low? How long has the current low solar activity lasted? So how does today’s lower solar activity compare to the LIA?”

The LIA began circa 1315 (historians use the beginning of the infamous Famine of 1315-1318 as the starting point). Generally, global temps began falling around the beginning of the 14th Century and continued to fall into the 17th Century. That is, global temps were falling for nearly 300 years before the Maunder Minimum occurred. There speculation that perhaps vulcanism had something to do with this -but, we’re talking 300 years. That’s a lot of volcanoes. The Sporer Minimum also occurred before the Maunder Minimum; but, would it cause the 300 year drop in global temps? The coldest decades of the LIA occurred between 1620-1690 during the Maunder Minimum. Not solar activity nor ENSO can explain the 900 year variances of global temps that make up the periods of both the LIA and MWP.

Some above are equating David Archibald as just another doom-and-gloomer, like Malthus, or his latter-day protege, Paul Erhlich. There is a major difference. Malthusians believe in a scarcity of natural resources and a profound ignorance in all humanity with the exception of themselves and their ‘elite’ intellectual brethren. David may believe in a limit to fossil fuels, but acknowledges the creative wisdom and ingenuity of humanity, with the exception of those ‘elite’ thinkers.

I believe that we have a growing abundance of fossil fuels AND human ingenuity, but I am still worried about Western Civilization. That is because we are largely influenced by the intellectual ‘elite’, who ironically, have proven themselves to be wrong about nearly everything for several generations! They have taken over the halls of education, spreading their viral pessimism at a time when humanity is doing better than ever, and has the least to worry about. This latest generation is possibly the most anxiety ridden in history, and people who live in fear almost always make bad decisions.

It’s difficult to predict the future.
Thanks to the Russian intervention in Ukraine we have more information about the zealous actions of the EU, the UN, the IMF and the global pact of bansters and that will provoke a lot of thinking among people who long surrendered to the concept of the EUSSR and the Globalist dream.

The first cracks emerged recently when against all odds at this very blog an article was published from our champion elite Bill Gates who cliaimed the world hasn’t been in a better shape than it is now.

Globalist. read centralist concepts always looked nice on paper and many salon socialist was able to win the dispute of the evening but in practice they have all failed.

Thanks to the web we are taking out “The Eternal Middleman” on any level of the economy leaving former powerhouses without any income.

This is causing an enormous power shift.

Not unmentioned should be the role of the Bitcoin which as many people believe is not a replacement for money but a complete digital finaccial infrastructure that will make the old system completely obsolete.
The bitcoin will make an end to central banking and therefore central control.

This means that the banksters will be out of control before they reach their Globalist objecives.

I really am an optimist and see the current hectic as the end of an era which without any doubt will be followed by a much better era.
The current establishment is trying to control progress, reduce consumption and hike energy costs based on lies and that for sure is going to hit the wall.

Thank you for posting the Ted Talk by Matt Ridley. I wrote my comment above before I saw your post and the video. The video strengthens my optimism about humanity, but I still worry about the pessimism of Western Civilization. The first few minutes of Mr. Ridley’s presentation are spot on concerning the remarkable global improvements humanity has enjoyed in his life time, yet the majority of people in the West seem to believe just the opposite. Bjorn Lomborg was nearly crucified for pointing out similar optimistic trends in 2001. The notion that we are doomed, despite all evidence to the contrary, is so pervasive, I fear that it is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

China has a sense of urgency that is not felt elsewhere, and for good reason. Its cities are choked in smog, and aside from needing more electricity capacity to power its growing economy, it also needs to find cleaner sources of power and shut down some coal plants. Thus, China has ambitious plans for nuclear power. While China only has 14.6 gigawatts of nuclear capacity as of 2013, it plans to scale up nuclear reactors to a combined installed capacity of 58 GW by 2020. It then hopes to nearly triple that figure to 150 GW by 2030. It has 31 reactors under construction and about 8.6 GW are expected to come online in 2014.

Whaaaaaaaa, whaaaaaaa, whaaaaaaaaaa. I want my global warming back. I don’t like this cold stuff. Time to move to Cali or Florida. I wonder if Tom or Antony are renting? Hmmm.

Well Dr Libby’s work from the 1970s still stands as the longest running “accurate” prediction of climate. I’m afraid we’re all due some “cold time”. Please don’t let this be the end of our inter-glacial period.

TRM says:
March 6, 2014 at 1:07 pm
” Time to move to Cali or Florida. I wonder if Tom or Antony are renting? ”

No but the house across the street from me is for sale at a great price. 2 bedroom, 2 bath, nice yard on a nice quiet street with a park at the end. About 8 mins to Manasota Beach, has been upgraded, was owned by a nice guy who did home improvements. His cousin came into big bucks and bought them a huge house in a gated community in Orlando, fully furnished along with a new car. Asking $100,000 (no I am not on commission or have anything to do with this sale)

Thank you for posting the Ted Talk by Matt Ridley. I wrote my comment above before I saw your post and the video. The video strengthens my optimism about humanity, but I still worry about the pessimism of Western Civilization. The first few minutes of Mr. Ridley’s presentation are spot on concerning the remarkable global improvements humanity has enjoyed in his life time, yet the majority of people in the West seem to believe just the opposite. Bjorn Lomborg was nearly crucified for pointing out similar optimistic trends in 2001. The notion that we are doomed, despite all evidence to the contrary, is so pervasive, I fear that it is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

No, I don’t think so.
People already see how silly they look driving their kids around in trike bikes and they also have seen their electricity bills go through the roof despite the solar panels on their homes.

They only have to get through the phase where they are mad at themselves for being so stupid.

I visited a party where people discussed a ban on plastic bags. I asked them what’s the trouble was with plastic bags. Well they said, the stuff ends up in the ocean.

I said that’s true but not our bags. We have the best disposal system of the world and the best thing we can do is introduce our disposal system but also our sewage and plumbing system and export it to those countries who don’t have any.

They only have to get through the phase where they are mad at themselves for being so stupid.

I visited a party where people discussed a ban on plastic bags. I asked them what’s the trouble was with plastic bags. Well they said, the stuff ends up in the ocean.

I said that’s true but not our bags. We have the best disposal system of the world and the best thing we can do is introduce our disposal system but also our sewage and plumbing system and export it to those countries who don’t have any…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Yes most people who do not have a hidden agenda will embrace a reasonable solution to a problem. I have done the same.

As far as pessimism and energy, humans will figure out another source if the regulators and parasite will get off their backs. I believe in human ingenuity it is the blasted government and parasites that I have problems with. They are the ones that have kept us chained to the earth when we could be ranging the solar system.

As for Spengler I really love his sharp pen and can’t say he writes things that are not true, at least for the moment but he too is someone with a Malthusian view and this incredible fixation on problems which were a problem 50 years ago but never materialized.

Just ignore the Malthusian view and the world is in a much better shape.
Maybe we only have to ban gray sunglasses and replace them for yellow and orange colors to tip the balance.
Really.
A friend of mine was suffering from depressions.
When he changed the color of his sunglasses his problems were gone.

We now have people worrying about healthcare.

Well, let me tell you about healthcare.

The problem with healthcare is not a lack of knowledge or innovation but fear for the future.
It could very well be we will see a rise of cots triggered by the old baby boomer generation but the coming years we will see a steep decline in traffic accidents thanks to remote sensor technology. Cars can no longer collide and even drive fully autonomous leaving the driver at the back seat. New medication, therapies and diagnostic systems will revolutionize health care where personal medication thanks to bio markers will start a new revolution. Currently we have 5.400 completely new new therapies underway. At the same time we have the introduction of apps which not only help a healthcare professional but also create new means of self diagnostics. A smartphone with an App help you to diagnose skin cancer. I know it doesn’t work 100% yet but the technology is quickly improving. We all know that early diagnoses reduces treatment costs. Other developments come from the field of food technology. Not only the quality of food will become better but also the ways we produce fresh vegetables and fruits all year around no matter the location will make us completely independent of the weather or the environment.
The ability to couple databases and make analysis is not new but when they were applied to GPS Data from from ambulances and hospital and insurance reports they found that a single traffic marker to separate approaching traffic on a bike lane was resppnsible for 1.500 one sided accidents with bikers over a period of 12 months who simply hit the traffic marker and broke bones in their feet, their legs, their collar bones, arm, wrist injuries and head injuries.

Nobody ever got the idea to remove the traffic marker and remove the cause of so many accidents.

We slowly make our civilization better and every step since the 60’s of the passed century has proved Mathus wrong.

They only have to get through the phase where they are mad at themselves for being so stupid”.

Yes most people who do not have a hidden agenda will embrace a reasonable solution to a problem. I have done the same.

As far as pessimism and energy, humans will figure out another source if the regulators and parasite will get off their backs. I believe in human ingenuity it is the blasted government and parasites that I have problems with. They are the ones that have kept us chained to the earth when we could be ranging the solar system.”

I agree, we’re wasting time but it will happen.

If the govenments think it’s no longer worth the effort, private initiative will pick up the challenge.

This is another example how the internet is empowering individuals and their idea’s.

I only have one problem with the lates Mars initiative offering the astronauts a single ticket.

That’s something completely against every fiber in my body.

I think we can turn that into a two way ticket very soon and we have to.

Those who settle for a one way ticket are not fit to go if you know what I mean.

China has a sense of urgency that is not felt elsewhere, and for good reason. Its cities are choked in smog, and aside from needing more electricity capacity to power its growing economy, it also needs to find cleaner sources of power and shut down some coal plants. Thus, China has ambitious plans for nuclear power. While China only has 14.6 gigawatts of nuclear capacity as of 2013, it plans to scale up nuclear reactors to a combined installed capacity of 58 GW by 2020. It then hopes to nearly triple that figure to 150 GW by 2030. It has 31 reactors under construction and about 8.6 GW are expected to come online in 2014."

China's problems with smog is the open fire and the household stove all fired by coal

john says (March 6, 2014 at 8:14 am): “This sounds a bit like Paul Ehrlich/John Holdren lite. The Club of Rome report from the early 1970s, lite.”

I followed the link to his lecture “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”. The title for slide 59 is “The Limits to Growth: not discredited, just 40 years early”.

That’s typical of doom-and-gloom predictions: The soothsayer uses the latest technology (animal entrails, astrology, computers) to construct a surefire rock-solid indisputable prediction of apocalypse which turns out to be, er, “ahead of its time, but just you wait, yessiree, you’re doooooomed…eventually!”

john says (March 6, 2014 at 8:14 am): “This sounds a bit like Paul Ehrlich/John Holdren lite. The Club of Rome report from the early 1970s, lite.”….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The actual limits to growth are government regulation.

As E.M. Smith said There is no shortage of stuff. Aside from a few molecules lost to outer space nothing leaves the earth so the “Using up resources” is hog wash.

If you really dig you find the whole problem is the Elite fear the challenge to their position, power and authority by having a middle class. They want to reduce everyone else to serfdom. That is why they are anti-capitalism/private property and pro-socialism/big government. They want to protect the status quo with them on the top of the heap.

They have done a bang up job of it too.

…In many countries the distribution of income has become more unequal, and the top earners’ share of income in particular has risen dramatically. In the United States the share of the top 1 percent has close to tripled over the past three decades, now accounting for about 20 percent of total U.S. income (Alvaredo and others, 2012).

Allan M.R. MacRae says on March 6, 2014 at 10:36 am
You did well Leif.
NASA not so much – as recently as 2006? NASA said SC 24 would be robust.

lsvalgaard says on March 6, 2014 at 10:40 am
A mark of good and honest scientists is that they admit and correct their mistakes. Hathaway [not NASA’s official prediction – they don’t do any] has seen the light years ago and should not be faulted for that old prediction. It is a mark of science to be falsifiable and Hathaway certainly deserves that mark.

Allan again:

Wow Leif, talk about damning with faint praise…

Kudos to Hathaway for being totally wrong in his chosen specialty, but at least he was falsifiable.

I prefer to be correct.

I tried being wrong once and found it totally unsatisfying and have not tried it since – I was very young at the time.

Allan M.R. MacRae says:
March 6, 2014 at 6:21 pmKudos to Hathaway for being totally wrong in his chosen specialty, but at least he was falsifiable.
Kudos to Hathaway for admitting he was wrong, or rather that theory he was using was too simplistic. He learned something, and we learned something, namely that that approach didn’t work. Isn’t that what progress in science is all about: learning what works and what doesn’t work. The latter is just as important as the former.

ferdberple says:
March 6, 2014 at 5:58 am
Gail Combs says:
March 6, 2014 at 4:35 am
the sun is constant and has very little to do with the earth’s climate.
================
It is strange however that the Milancovitch cycles provide no explanation for the Little Ice Age, and the Sun has shown itself to be quite variable when it comes to its magnetic cycle.

If the sun is constant, why does the solar (magnetic) cycle length vary? Why does the sunspot count vary? Why does the solar wind strength vary? This does not provide assurance that the Sun is constant, only that certain measures of the Sun are relatively constant.

Climate Science assumes that Climate is drive by watts/meter squared. Since this varies only slightly based on a very limited period of space-based observation of the Sun, it is assumed that the Sun has limited effect on climate.

However, assumptions in science have a very long track record of being proven wrong in the long run. Nature almost always surprises us in ways we never imagined.

For example, there are many observations that suggest there is a 1000-2000 year cycle in climate. Even under the assumption that climate is driven by w/m2, would we be able with modern technology to detect such a long cycle variation in the Sun against the background noise of the solar cycle? I expect not. The sampling period is much too short.
++++++++++
A nice and very cogent set of statements. Thank you. Your posts are very thought provoking and help us skeptics, be skeptical –which is a good thing! I tend to feel that significant variations in the sun’s output have effects that we do not fully understand and should not be rejected because we can not quantify their effects. I hope in the coming years, we can use observations to find out more… If it cools, it could be coincidence, or it could entice people to find out more!

lsvalgaard says:
March 6, 2014 at 6:54 pm
Allan M.R. MacRae says:
March 6, 2014 at 6:21 pm
Kudos to Hathaway for being totally wrong in his chosen specialty, but at least he was falsifiable.
Kudos to Hathaway for admitting he was wrong, or rather that theory he was using was too simplistic. He learned something, and we learned something, namely that that approach didn’t work. Isn’t that what progress in science is all about: learning what works and what doesn’t work. The latter is just as important as the former.
+++++++++++
Kudos to you Leif! (and many other kudos for your patience with me/us. We learn more by being wrong than by being right, I often say. Having an intellectual humbleness opens up opportunities for learning.

I wish David Archibald success with his new book. I will probably buy it because he has many interesting things to say based on much experience. It will of course go through my filter – and hopefully give me pause to think about the science!

Many people believe that because the weapons have become mass destructive (supposedly, able to bring on doomsday), because there has been so much commerce and interconnection, and because of the UN, we will never repeat the mistakes of the mid 20th century. And I have a bridge to sell you.

David’s book is available on Kobo (in Canada) on Mar 24th and I’ll be interested in what he has to say about energy: Climate not so much.
My view is that all hysteria on climate should be completely ignored, but that we should focus on the much harder science of HC depletion and energy availability.

I’m like the guy from a renaissance fair plunked down into a Tudor Musicology conference. As a layman, I can’t critique the solar science; I have a gut sense that Leif is entirely correct, but I can’t pay the price of entry to actually understand enough of the research enough for my opinion to worth anything.

Spengler and his hypotheses, on the other hand, I understand. As a guy who’s read Spengler for a while and both lauded and chastised him on my little “five whole people read my blog/blog,” I’m really interested in what David has to say here on both energy and climate->geopolitics fronts. So, purchased.

I’d probably buy a digital copy if it were reasonably priced at $1.99 or so, but I find Kindle pricing obscenely greedy. So I’ll wait until the book arrives at a public library near me. Is marketing strategy part of your theme for the rosy future, and if so, does it involve eliminating public libraries?

It seems to me that a person who has a message he truly believes might save his civilization, or even the human race, would be more interested in getting it to the maximum number of readers rather than targeting a tiny segment of humanity who buy books for $20+. It doesn’t seem to fit well with the anti-elitist theme of the overview above either.

Gamecock March 6, 2014 at 6:23 am
“There was no thorium in the reactor. Really. Thorium is the 100 mpg carburetor of the 21st century.”

This is quite an ignorant statement – ignorant in terms of uninformed.

The thorium is fluidized and sent around the core in a jacket, to get irradiated and converted. Then 30 days later, after changing eventually to U-233, that very same material is – still fluidized – used in the core.

Your comment is like saying that the bread we eat is not fuel for our bodies because it doesn’t enter our blood streams as slices of bread.

“And why have all the molten solids cooled reactors been decommissioned? Were thorium to fulfil [sic] its extreme expectations, it would not overcome the difficulties of cooling a reactor with a molten solid.”

Please inform yourself before making comments.

There was ONE reactor. It ran successfully, and it was initially only given the go-ahead because they thought they could weaponize it by using it as the reactor for nuclear bombers that could stay in the air for months at a time. Conventional reactors were too heavy, so for a nuclear bomber, LFTRs were the only possibility.

Richard M. Nixon shut down the program because ICBMs and nuclear subs had made the nuclear bomber a no-go. Shutting it down had nothing to do with the reactor itself being a failure.

Its inventor was Eugene Wigner, the same man who invented the light water reactors used all over the world – which have been shown to be real disasters when things go wrong. It was not a fly-by-night operation. It was not a failure. It was 100% successful. But the military and the by-then-well-established light water reactor industry didn’t want it, so they sandbagged it.

It’s a combination of deluded ravings, sensible suggestions, and complacent parroting of the conservative party line.

On the sensible side, Archibald uses various studies of the relationship between solar activity and the earth’s climate to argue that the sun is currently cooling, and this will lead to less radiation and magnetic flux diverting cosmic rays from outside the solar system away from the earth, thus these rays will be more powerful, which will create more cloud cover, which will lead to a cooler climate. I don’t know if this is true, but it is at least as plausible as the global warming hypothesis, and gets no airtime.

He is too confident in dismissing the global warming hypothesis. More careful skeptics claim that there is little evidence for it, rather than that it’s definitely a hoax. His hypothesis depends on the opposite claim – we are in for a cooling, which is bound to be much more harmful than warming. He sees big importers of grain, like Egypt, starving to death, and America just surviving, if it abandons foreign aid, stands firm against the Islamic menace, and becomes vegetarian.

On the deluded side, the author goes on and on about Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program, before mentioning the inconvenient fact that Israel already has them. Iran’s putative program is defensive, not offensive. Like an American knuckledragger, he claims that China “wishes the United States ill”. He fails to understand that some of the inhabitants of less successful countries harbor resentment toward the more successful, because the latter have a long history of murdering and enslaving the former.

Back to sanity: he writes about different types of nuclear power, various uses of coal and oil, and the relative uselessness of green energy sources, like someone who knows what he’s talking about. I can’t say whether he really does – I don’t know if “thorium salt” nuclear reactors are better than other types.

But on the whole, his book has too many right-wing and Zionist opinions liberally sprinkled over scientific insights. With friends like David Archibald, climate change skepticism doesn’t need enemies.

Iran’s putative program is defensive, not offensive. So they say, but utterances by former President Ahmadinejad about “wiping Israel from the map” whether poorly translated or not, point to at least some offensive desire, if not actual intent (although the fact they have long range missiles, with I believe, North Korean help, is also another pointer to somewhat “less than defensive” posture).